[erlang-questions] code mobility

[Richard O'Keefe]

On 21/10/2010, at 1:42 PM, Jiansen He wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I am thinking to what extend Erlang may support (weak) code mobility.
> Directly send a function to another node will not work because only
> function signatures are sent.

There are languages that do this, like Kali Scheme.
For that matter, dear old Interlisp-D could send S-expressions around
the network, and compiling S-expressions to byte code was fast enough
that network transmission was the dominant cost.
Obliq (from Luca Cardelli at DEC) could send objects around the net.
without losing their methods.

> Could anyone offer a better solution to send a function in Erlang.
> Or, perhaps, some efforts have been done before?  I think code
> mobility will became more and more important for future languages.

Code mobility was the coming thing several decades ago.  Does anyone
else remember Emerald?  There are issues with security and so on that
make it attractive only within a trust boundary.


>